Human Trafficking

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates annual profits from trafficking in human beings amount to 32 billion USD, while the US government claims trafficking is the fastest growing, and second most lucrative criminal operation in the world, on a par with the arms trade, and second only to the illegal drugs industry.

Elizabeth has researched asylum and immigration issues concerning victims of human trafficking for exploitation in the UK, and has worked on Jubilee Action’s Children Affected by Human Trafficking for Exploitation Programme in Nepal, for which Elizabeth undertook a field visit and evaluation, with recommendations for future policy and programming.

September 2013 Sex Trafficking: Institutionalisation and the Children of Sex Trafficking Victims in Nepal. A background article on sex trafficking from Nepal to India, and the institutionalisation of children in Nepal. Repatriated children of sex trafficking victims often face institutionalisation, both as part of life in India’s brothels and then again when returned home to Nepal.

September 2012 Witchcraft and Trafficking: Ties that bind: African witchcraft and contemporary slavery. In Africa, witchcraft has become inextricably linked to the trafficking in persons for exploitation. However this is not an African problem, but a problem of abuse which extends across the globe. The common factor linking witchcraft and human trafficking is the modern perversion of traditional belief systems for financial gain, at the expense of the grossest violations of human rights.

July 2012 Intercountry Adoption: Adoption trade sets up shop in Africa. More than ten years on from Romania’s moratorium on intercountry adoptions, imposed after tales of trafficking networks and a black market in stolen babies, Africa is dubbed the new frontier for intercountry adoption, with a threefold rise in intercountry adoption cases in eight years, despite a global 15 year low.

February 2003 Sex Trafficking: Pile Them High, Sell Them Cheap: Women and Sex for Sale. Review of Trading Women documentary (right) which profiles the hill peoples of Thailand, noting that lack of citizenship, with its associated landlessness, poverty and vulnerability to police corruption, is an overriding factor in the women becoming easy prey to traffickers into the Thai sex industry.

November 2002 Intercountry Adoption: A fresh start for Europe’s lost children. Hundreds of orphanages were constructed in Romania as a result of former President Nicolae Ceausescu, who declared all forms of contraception and abortion illegal and instructed all women under the age of 45 to have at least five children. The inability of parents to care for their children meant that by 1990 over 100,000 children were living in these institutions. Hope and Homes for Children believes that enjoying a loving family life is as fundamental a need for children as food, shelter and safety and is committed to providing this for every child in Romania’s institutions.

In Africa, ritual “oaths of protection” mentally chain victims to their traffickers, the expulsion of alleged witches from African communities creates a desperate and vulnerable population for ruthless exploitation, and trafficking for ritual killing thrives because witchcraft bestows magical properties on human body parts, particularly those of Albinos and children. Read more.